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Friday, 29 August 2014

Yes, I'm all excited. I feel like I've been on a sugar rush all morning. *Looks at pile of cakes* Okay, maybe I have been. Brought cakes into work and as it was to celebrate three events, book launch, birthday and final day at work before I start my new job on Monday, I had to bring in a lot.Anyway, the copies of my novel arrived on Wednesday. I took one box home and locked the other up at work ready for launch day. I was included on the last staff newsletter so there has been quite the buzz at work about it. I've already sold a fair few copies this morning, at knife point. I've been getting photos of people with the book to make into a collage when I get home. I'll add it here when it's ready.

Here is the book trailer, although I have already linked it here before, it's good to have everything in one place.

And, for people wanting to buy a copy it is available from the following links:

Or you can order it from your friendly local high street bookshop using the paperback ISBN : 978-1-909845-59-6

Anyway, I'm very excited. This really is an amazing moment. I've been writing novels since I was 16 and finally here is one in print. Although, I will admit that I never sent the first two novels I wrote for publication owing to getting stuck in the continuous rewrite loop.

Tuesday, 12 August 2014

The editing is now complete on my novel Atlantis and the Game Time. My thanks goes to Caro for all her hard work, despite having a number of family issues during the process to cope with. Half of the novel was written as part of NaNoWriMo, so there were a lot of mistakes to find. Anyone who spots one in the final version, don't blame Caro, blame me.

Anyway, how did I find the editing process? To be honest, I was dreading it to start. I had all these visions of receiving a document longer the the manuscript with all the mistakes in it which needed correcting. It actually wasn't that bad. I did try to catch as many of the mistakes as I could, in my own editing phase, but spotting mistakes in your own work is ten times harder than spotting them in someones else, as you tend to skim read sentences as you intended them and end up completely blind to many mistakes.

Caro broke the editing down, sending it chapter by chapter and each chapter was easily correctable within my one hour lunch break. I'm not going to deny that she found some very stupid mistakes in there which I am quite mortified at not spotting before hand but at least I know those particular mistakes won't be in the final version.

As well as the editing, I have also handed over the final digital version of the cover so that is also now with Sammy and Kristell Ink ready for publishing. I was a little concerned with how close we were getting to the launch date but I am very happy now everything seems to be read, on my end at least. I'm sure poor Sammy will be stressing for a few weeks in my place.

Also, Kristell Ink is running a Kickstarter project to raise funds for 2015's releases. This publisher has helped a number of first time authors, including myself, and with the Kickstarter funding could help many more. So please, if you can spare even just a pound or two then do pledge as there are many more authors out there. There are also some very nice hoodies as rewards for pledgers, one of which is already earmarked for me, and a host of other rewards; so you can get more than just that warm fuzzy feeling of donating- which is obviously very good on its own but... hoodies!

Really, I'm not obsessed with the hoodies... okay I am. I really want one. Please pledge as if we don't hit target then I won't get my hoodie and I will cry myself to sleep in disappointment. Nobody wants that right? Yeah, okay, probably the answer to that is a yes. But I still want my hoodie!

Friday, 1 August 2014

Now the trailer for my novel is complete, I have finally been able to get back to writing. I've done pretty much no writing so far this year, with the time sapped by doing my book cover and helping out with the Finchley Literary Festival and then my book trailer. It's been a real busy year. And, you know, I have enjoyed doing all those things, but there were so many time when I just wanted to sit down and write. Last Saturday that time finally came and I started on a new novel. Yes, I do have plenty of other novels that need completing and should probably be finishing one of those but with the editing work I've been doing on 'Atlantis and the Game of Time' it left me really hankering after another time travelling adventure.

I've been planning the sequel in my mind for over a year now. The reason I haven't started writing before is that I only have the first half of the novel planned with little idea where the second half is going, but I guess that's fine. When I started the first novel, I had pretty much no idea where that one was going and it somehow managed to organise itself. After all, in writing, I find that discovering is half the fun. Just so long as it's not discovering a problem that means you have rewrite the whole novel, that is... Anyway, hoping that's not going to happen.

So, here comes the big question; how much can I reveal here on the sequel? Well, this novel is set not just in the past and present but also the future (relative to the book timeline not our own). There will be more pranks, popes beware, and more time travelling, back to the Aztecs, Babylon and some new time periods...spoilers! I will also reveal the title which is 'Atlantis and the Daughter of Chaos'.

Anyway, I'm currently one and a half chapters in and I'm having fun already. Here's hoping that fun continues.